Battle of Okinawa

The Battle of Okinawa (1 April-22 June 1945) was a major battle fought between the United States and Japan towards the end of World War II. For 82 days, 250,000 US Army and US Marine Corps troops faced heavy resistance from a garrison of 76,000 Imperial Japanese Army troops and 20,000 Okinawan conscripts as they attempted to wrest control of the island from the Japanese. The two sides suffered heavy losses, but the US capture of Okinawa allowed for the Americans to acquire new airbases for the bombing of Japan and also allowed for US troops to mass in preparation for the invasion of Japan.

History
Following the capture of Iwo Jima, the US operational planners shifted their attention to the island of Okinawa, which lay just 350 miles south of the Japanese Home Islands. The island was defended by more than 120,000 men, and General Mitsuru Ushijima was determined to turn the island into an American graveyard. Admiral Chester W. Nimitz assembled a huge fleet for the assault, including 40 aircraft carriers and 18 battleships. The opening naval bombardment of Okinawa began on 23 March 1945, lasting for a whole week.

On the morning of 1 April, the assault boats headed for the shore, and the Americans met almost no opposition upon landing. By nightfall, 60,000 American troops had landed, and the beachhead was up to 2 miles deep. For the next two days, the Americans built up their strength and pushed across the island. Opposition was unexpectedly light, and the Japanese defenders had been split in two by 4 April. Marine divisions pushed north as Army units pushed south, and the Marines met only sporadic resistance; they cleared the northern part of the island three weeks after the start of the operation. However, the Army units ran into savage fire in the south, and the Japanese held their defensive line for ten days. When the Japanese could not hold out any longer, they withdrew to the next defensive position, continuing to resist all over again. The Japanese also planned to launch an air assault on the invasion fleet. On 7 April 1945, 350 kamikaze pilots drank their ritual sake before approaching the US landing fleet. The kamikazes, assisted by 350 other planes, attacked a destroyer squadron first, and two US destroyers had been sunk at the end of the first day of the attack, with 24 other vessels also suffering damage. Despite this, the Japanese lost over 300 planes in their first attack. Over the following days, the Japanese started Ohka kamikaze attacks, and another US destroyer was sunk on 12 April. US fighters quickly learned to shoot down Mitsubishi G4M "Betty" fighters as they carried Ohka missiles to their targets, so the Imperial Japanese Navy decided to launch a suicide mission of its own. It sent its most powerful ship, the Yamato, to head to Okinawa and sink as many US ships as possible before being sunk. However, the ship was intercepted by 400 US aircraft, and it blew up within two hours. The fireball could be seen for over 100 miles.

Torrential rain on Okinawa turned the battlefield into a quagmire as a month passed, and every cave or underground entrance had to be blasted out by grenades, flamethrowers, or C4 explosives. The Japanese fought for every inch of their home islands, and US casualties rapidly mounted as they struggled to take the island. On 1 June 1945, the town of Shuri was captured, and a new contingent of Marines landed near Naha on 4 June to link up with troops pushing down from the north. Savage fighting continued, and the Japanese resistance started to collapse on 17 June. Five days later, Okinawa was secured, and General Mitsuru Ushijima committed hara-kiri ritual suicide. Over 17,000 prisoners were taken, the first time that such large numbers of Japanese troops had surrendered. 100,000 Japanese soldiers and 40,000 civilians were killed, while the Americans had lost over 15,000 men. The Americans were reminded that they would have to face the toughest resistance if they were to invade the Home Islands, so they sought to find a way to eliminate Japanese resistance once and for all.